SARAH CARSON





I FIND A STACK OF VHS TAPES I MADE WHEN WAS AT THE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE WHERE I STUDIED FILMMAKING AND NOW I'M THINKINNG ABOUT THE THEORY OF INFINITE UNIVERSES


How I learned to crop a moment lengthwise,
the way a razor cuts both in and through.

The story I've carried with me—
wound tight against a lock plate—

is soft where the tape spliced,
rearranged from fragments.

My sister knee high to the milk thistle,
my mother at the window

ticking like a fawn.
Think of it all like a kid

who's strung two VCRs together:
one timeline on pause,

the other edging forward.
Two moments about to merge

while all the others fade to black.
This morning on the highway,

a crotch rocket buzzed past me
like a homing missile,

& I thought of my father,
who sold his motorcycle

when I was still in diapers.
In this universe, it was him

running me from the house
after another failed fight

about who gets to become
their dreaming.

What came next?
What happened after?

It's not just God who chooses
from infinite arrangements.

I have also decided what to remember,
what I won't let others see.






AUTOCORRECT: THREE